New and Different!
by Ton Of Feathers
Summary: This is from a very odd dream i had. There are now new riders but one is VERY different! Characters OOC, some more than others! Hint: this is a very important part of the story, lol. R&R please!
1. Chapter 1: New Rider

**This story has Brisingr spoilers and some things that i just made up! Beware!**

**Okay! This is my new story, woo! I had a weird dream after reading too much Brisingr (is that even possible? Too Much Brisingr??) And this was that dream. I have fleshed it out a bit to make it a bit more logical cos you know how odd dreams can be!**

**But anyway, here we go onto my lovely new fan fic! Woo!**

**So the formalities, Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Inheritance Cycle, but I did make up Taraug and I love him.**

"Every child between the age of 12 and 17 must report to the common green within one hour! Every child between…" Taraug heard the town crier stroll past him and wondered momentarily if he ever got a sore throat.

Shrugging, he clambered to his feet, stretching out to his full 6'6" height, he really didn't expect they'd actually choose him; he wouldn't choose him that was for sure. He yawned and headed to the green, the queue would be huge, so he might as well join it as soon as possible.

He turned onto the main street, still bleary eyed from his nap. A woman with a tiny child gasped as he passed and pulled her son away from him. Taraug ignored her, he was used to the looks he got from ignorant people and he'd learnt years ago that there was no point getting angry or even trying to explain, it just made it worse for both him and the passer-by.

The queue out of the green snaked out, half way down the main street. Yawning again, he joined it, already having decided this would be a waste of time.

The man in front gaped at him and pulled his son to the side, "Would you like to go in front of us?" He asked, nerves making sweat bullets on his face.

Taraug almost refused, he didn't want this sort of treatment, but he finally conceded. There was no reason to scare the man anymore; it wasn't his fault Taraug was stood behind him.

The young girl in front of him scowled as she heard what the man had said and turned to confront whoever had decided that they would pressure those who had been waiting hours. "What do you…?" She finally saw Taraug's face and cringed away in fear, stepping back to allow him past.

So it continued down the line, Taraug moving much quicker than anyone else in the queue. Finally he reached the front where the guard, who was one of the few people who actually understood Taraug's situation, said, "Didn't think you'd turn up…boy." He scowled on the last word.

" I wouldn't have done." Muttered Taraug, "But I'd get in trouble if I didn't. I really don't want any trouble here."

"Humph." The guard scowled and indicated that it was Taraug's turn.

With a sigh, Taraug entered the tent erected on the green only hours before by the town's magic wielders and waited for what ever was bound to happen.

A short man, barely reaching Taraug's chest, was sat near the door. Without looking up from his parchment he said, "You have a minute in here, if anything happens, we wait longer to see if it's really going to happen." He pointed Taraug vaguely over towards the table in the centre of the tent, still looking down.

The table was filled with Dragon Eggs. Each egg was a different colour, no two matching. He walked around the table, wondering what it would be like to be one of the new Riders. Ever since the great Eragon had found the vault of souls to contain hundreds of dragon eggs, the riders had travelled with the eggs, seeking out their Riders.

Taraug gently touched a black one and a spark of hope flared in his heart. He chuckled grimly; he'd almost forgotten what hope felt like. He squashed the flame, there was no way he would be a Rider. Not Taraug.

Suddenly the egg in his hand trembled and the man near the door was over in a shot, "What did you do to it?" He put the egg back on the table where it rolled again. He stared at it, his mouth falling open, "No…"

The egg squeaked and a crack rippled down its side, resulting in two more across it's black surface.

Taraug stepped back there was no way this was happening; the egg couldn't be hatching for _him._

The man motioned him back to the table, "Your Dragon is hatching," he spoke in a reverend whisper. After a moment he rushed out the tent leaving Taraug alone with the egg.

"No, Egg! Don't hatch for me!" he pleaded, "You don't want me, I'm dangerous!"

Stubbornly the egg cracked further and the Dragon poked its head out of the shell. It tilted it's small head to the right and started to clamber out the shell. It fell, landing badly on the table among it's quiet shelled siblings.

Taraug reached out towards it as it steadied itself, "Don't hurt your self, little one." He flinched as the dragon pushed it's head against his hand, making it ache in a peculiar way. He felt light-headed for a moment and then fell back just as the man returned with three people he'd not seen before. He blinked for a moment and saw the dragon peer at him from the table before he slumped into unconsciousness.

Minutes later he awoke, but he was no longer in the big tent, instead he was in a bed in a much warmer and much smaller one. He opened his eyes and saw that the Dragon, _his_ Dragon, was curled up on his chest.

"Hey, little one." His voice was croaky and he could barely hear it himself, but his Dragon sat up and peered at him again.

He noticed one of the people who had rushed into the tent as he'd fainted was sat at a desk nearby. As he pulled himself seated, the man turned to face Taraug, becoming the first person to look Taraug in the eye since he entered the tent.

He blinked, taking in Taraug's maroon eyes, white skin and crimson tinted black hair, then shouted "You're a Shade!"

**A/N Dun Dun Duh!! Were you surprised? Did you guess? I wanna know if I was too obvious with it cos the next chapter's kinda similar, but with a different character… fun!!**

**Please Review! I'll accept flames, I can always improve. I just want a few reviews, just a few please!! Please!! Don't make me beg! (Wait, I already am…)**

**:)**


	2. Prologue: The Past Affects Us Now

Prologue

**Prologue!**

**This is due to the review by bushtuckapenguin (who has a rather good name!)**

**It's just gonna clear some stuff up that might not make much sense in chap 1 :)**

Prologue.1

'_Saphira!'_ Eragon called mentally, _'Am I in the right place?'_

'_Arya and Blade say you should be right next to it.' _ She sent him the picture of the map in Arya's hand_, 'You just have to say your name.'_

Breathing heavily Eragon spat out the name that Oromis had finally figured out. Eragon's true name.

The rock in front, the entrance to the vault of souls, slid open and Eragon gasped.

Saphira, Arya, Blade, Murtagh and Thorn watching through Eragon's thoughts were stunned into silence.

'But I'm the last one to hatch, there are no more of us!' Blade, Arya's green dragon, was the first to become articulate.

'But these…there's nothing else they could be…' Murtagh shook his head.

Eragon stepped forward and gently touched the first one on the right, "It's real. They're all real. There must be hundreds." With a shake of the head, Eragon's thoughts returned to the others, "There are hundreds of Dragon eggs here."

Prologue.2

Fire surrounded Eragon. Cut off all but mentally from the others, Eragon was alone.

Galbatorix walked through, the fire curling around him like an obedient dog. His face turned into a derisive sneer, "Finally, I am privileged enough to meet the great _Shadeslayer_…"

"Save your words, Galbatorix, I will not be swayed from my attempt to kill you!" Eragon drew Brisingr and pointed it towards Galbatorix.

"You will not succeed with that puny thing alone," He sneered, not even drawing his own black sword.

"I don't intend to!" Eragon shouted, "Now!"

The power of three Dragon riders and their Dragons poured into Brisingr and with a command from Eragon shot straight into Galbatorix's heart.

The king's knees buckled and he fell to his knees, barely breathing.

Realising that the others had fainted form the exertion, Eragon knew there was only person able to finish this job.

Covering the distance between them, Eragon shakily held Brisingr to Galbatorix's white neck.

"Please… Mercy…" He begged with his last few breaths.

Eragon swung Brisingr, slicing through the king's neck, "I'm not Vrael."

**A/N So there we go! Hopefully this explains any discrepancies with my first chapter. I know how they killed Galbatorix was a bit silly, but I didn't know how else to kill him and just wanted him out the way. I'm not Paolini, so I don't have to have an awesome way of sorting it all out; I just want my little story to be vaguely plausible.**

**Okay so 'plausible' might be a bit of a high expectation, but hopefully it'll get to 'it could maybe work'.**

**Also, Taraug will be explained in the next chapter. You'll figure out why I'm so proud of him…**

**Sorry, rambling… :( **

**But, Please Review!! Please, please, please, please, please! **

I've updated this because I realised it had a MAJOR mistake in it. Oops… Also, my spelling needed a good kick.

Sorry, I rushed it a bit. I might redo this chapter later, with a bit more detail, but I'm working on chap 2 at the minute so it might not be for a while!


	3. Chapter 2: Who?

**Here's the real chapter 2, woo!**** It's very long, but I promised you all the new OOC character, so I didn't want to disappoint by putting them in chap 3. :)**

**I might try to re-do the prologue later, but at the minute the main story is much more interesting, so you'll have to wait ****until that's finished. :P**

**Any way, you already know I don't own any of the Eragon Characters or anything. (Excluding Taraug, who is mine! Mwahahahaha!)**

"You're a shade!"

"No!" Taraug protested, "Well, yes, but please let me explain!"

"Explain what? You're either a shade or not!" the man backed up, his hand on the pommel of his sword.

"I'm in control of the spirits! They don't rule me!" Taraug put a calming hand onto the back of his Dragon, who now had his hackles up like a small, but incredibly angry cat. Taraug could feel the dragon's anger as if it was his own and that was dangerous. Responding to Taraug's concern, the dragon curled up again on his legs, but still peered at the man, it's thoughts turned now to annoyance. Taraug sighed; annoyance was a much safer emotion.

"When I was being turned into a shade, only half of the spirits succeeded in getting into me." He pulled a hand through his hair and looked imploringly at the man, "It means I control them, they don't control me!"

"Hmmm…" the man scowled at Taraug and closed his eyes.

Taraug felt as the man tried to probe his thoughts and he instinctively closed down his mind. Sweat appeared on the man's face as he tried in vain to get into Taraug's mind.

"Stop!" Taraug yelled, mentally pushing the man off balance, "You don't want to get in there." The dragon gently pressed it's snout to his hand, he could feel it's concern that he was in pain.

"I'm alright, little one." He rubbed it's small head and smiled as he felt it's happiness.

"We will have no reason to trust you if you don't let us into your mind!" The man shouted and pulled his sword from its sheath. With that, it was obvious this man was no rider, for his blade was a plain steely grey, nothing like the elf Rhunön's creations.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." A new voice entered the tent along with a tall lean elf. His silver dragon poked it's head in the tent flap and growled at the man.

Instantly the man dropped to his knees, the blade crashing to the floor, "Please, forgive me, Rider, sir! But he is a Shade! He is not to be trusted!"

"But that's not-" Taraug shouted, outraged.

"Quiet!" the Rider's command was reinforced by the silver dragon's snarl.

Taraug's little black dragon crawled on to his shoulder and shivered into Taraug's neck. Unthinkingly, Taraug put a hand on it's back to comfort it.

"Don't scare the little one, Beroan." The rider spoke aloud for the other's benefit. He sighed, calming himself and turned to the man, "Who are you to decide whom the rider's should trust?" The man's face was a mask of terror, but the rider continued, "Well? I asked you a question."

"I… I am Reol, the magician of this town…" He stammered.

"Hmmm..." the rider scowled, but his face looked less perturbed as if this had allayed some of his fears, "Your intentions were good, but your methods faulty. A shade's mind is made up of many evil spirits; to attempt to gain access to such a mind would result in madness. You could even have been possessed yourself." The rider shook his head, "The fact a dragon has chosen this boy, be he shade or not, means we should trust him. You may go."

"Thank you lord, rider, sir-"

"Go!" the rider interrupted and the man scurried from the tent like a frightened mouse.

The rider collapsed into the chair near the door and sighed, "They told me you were out of it, so I thought I could finish my business before attending to you." He still hadn't looked toward Taraug, "I am sorry."

"It's alright." Taraug muttered, hoping this was the right thing to say. His dragon scurried back onto his lap and gently licked his finger, concern radiating through it. "I'm alright, little one." He patted it and tried to stifle a laugh as it fell off his knee, just catching itself on tiny wings as it neared the floor.

The big silver dragon let out an odd growling noise that sounded like laughter and Taraug's dragon preened indignantly, before crawling back up to Taraug's shoulder.

"You were like that once, Beroan." The elf rider blinked himself out of his thoughts, "Have you named him yet?" He turned to Taraug, lifting a perfectly sculptured eyebrow.

"It's a him?" Taraug looked at the little dragon and felt the agreement through their link, "Err… no." He turned to the elf, "Any ideas?"

The elf chuckled grimly, "that's one thing I can't help you with." He closed his eyes, "You give it some thought, I need to contact the others. You're a bit of an enigma and we need to discuss some things before you come back to the halls."

Taraug grimaced, he'd known the moment that the Dragon had hatched from the black egg, that it- no, he- would cause Taraug problems, but the display earlier had made him realise it was going to be a lot worse.

The dragon chirruped and leaned around so hr could see Taraug's face. Carefully, he tilted his head and Taraug could tell it was wondering about his name.

"Err… how about Jet?" he whispered. He felt the disapproval and tried again, "Nirasal?" The dragon chuffed, obviously not impressed by Taraug's attempts. Taraug ran through all the dragon names he'd ever heard and to each the Dragon declined.

"Augh! What do you want to be called?" Taraug snapped, exasperated.

A tendril of pain shot through Taraug's mind as the spirits he kept out of his mind by will power alone tried to squirm in through the path of anger. The pain made him spasm, his back arching, as the searing flames wriggled through his mind, like a flaming blade.

"No!" Taraug shut down his mind, carefully thinking only of the colour of the bed he still lay on. Slowly, the pain slipped away, retreating to wait for another chance, when any emotion could trigger another attack.

Taraug suddenly realised he was shaking and sat on his hands, trying to hide it from the Dragons and the Elf.

The elf was already by his side though, "Are you alright? What in the world was that?" He gently laid a cool hand on Taraug's forehead, relieving the vestiges of pain in Taraug's body with a word in the Ancient Language.

"I'm fine, it's passed. They haven't got in." Taraug shuddered as he thought how close they had got.

"They? You mean the spirits?" The rider's eyes were wide in shock, he was clearly shocked by the implications, "They can attack your mind, even with that small amount of anger?"

"No." Taraug took a deep breath, "It's a combination of the stress from today and the fact I haven't meditated yet today, set off by that little bit of anger." He smiled ruefully and looked to the floor.

The elf was in quiet contemplation as Taraug noticed the blackberries next to his bed. Confused, he turned to his Dragon and finally realised what the purple stains on the Dragon's mouth from earlier actually were.

"You like black berries, huh?" The Dragon chirruped in agreement, and Taraug felt it wondering where this was going.

"well, blackberries come from briar plants and you're black," sensing the dragon's disapproval he hastily added, "No, not Blackberry, I was thinking more along the lines of Briar or maybe something more dragony like Vriar, or Briam."

The dragon cocked it's head and chirped happily. "Which? Briam?" Taraug's question was greeted with a sense of happiness flowing through him.

"Alright, you're Briam." He smiled as the dragon curled up happily on his lap.

"Briam, huh?" the Elf smiled, "Good name." He stood and indicated fro Taraug to follow suit, "We're off to the Dragon Halls new rider, you're new home."

Flying was incomparable to anything Taraug had ever experienced before, it was intensely exhilarating, to the point where he threw his arms into the air and laughed aloud, much to the Elf's amusement.

He was behind the Elf, who had finally told Taraug he was called Nâolin, flying fast over the clouds in Beroan's saddle. Briam was chirruping happily and Taraug could feel his yearning to fly this high on his own, with Taraug on his back.

Soon, the Rider's Halls, built only last year, after the death of King Galbortorix, loomed into sight. It's towers cut into the clouds like they was made of butter, each one elegantly styled, grand tributes to the great halls of the elves.

As they descended, more of the halls became visible and towers gave way to beautifully designed buildings, some large enough to hold hundreds of dragons, but even the smallest could easily hold a fully grown Dragon (if they curled in their wings, Nâolin informed him).

Beroan landed expertly on the ground near the largest of the halls and Nâolin sprung off and turned to help Taraug down.

"Welcome to your new home, young Taraug." Nâolin smiled and led him into one of the huge halls.

At one end of the hall, there were three hugely ornate seats. Obviously work of the great Dwarven craftsmen, each was a different colour. One was a red the colour of a summer sunset, another the green found only on the greatest of trees, the third and final seat was blue, the blue of sapphires.

In the green seat, a beautiful raven haired elf sat with her green dragon, of the exact same hue as her chair, curled before her.

"Lady Arya." Nâolin inclined his head to the elf and indicated for Taraug to do the same.

"This is him?" Arya walked swiftly over to Taraug and Nâolin, "Are you the Shade Rider?"

"Yes, my lady." Taraug was shaking on the inside and hoping his fear would not betray him. He knew of the great Arya, one of the three riders responsible for the downfall of King Galbortorix.

"Hello." She smiled, "Don't worry, Nâolin has explained your predicament to us and we will not hold it against you. Not when Briam has chosen you." She turned to Nâolin, "Take him to the initiates' halls, Eragon will meet you there."

She smiled and returned to her seat, where another rider was already starting to bombard her with new problems for her to solve.

Nâolin pulled Taraug out the entrance opposite the one they came in.

"Are they not worried about me? About me being a shade?" Taraug asked Nâolin timidly, Taraug didn't want them to worry, but he knew that they should.

"They are indeed worried, but they realise that what has happen, has happened. The only way to stop you being a rider would be to kill Briam." Taraug gasped at Nâolin's honesty, "But no one would ever kill a dragon and definitely not at this tender age. And even if we were to, you would be driven mad by grief, which would probably make you loose control and become a true shade." Nâolin shrugged, "So don't you worry, let us do that."

Taraug mulled Nâolin's words over as they walked over to the initiates' hall, a grand building filled with warm oak panelling and great roaring fires.

"Eragon will be meeting us here in a moment." Nâolin smiled and indicated that Taraug should sit.

Briam, who had been riding quietly on Taraug's shoulder since their flight, clambered down onto his lap, chirruping softly as he felt Taraug's concern.

"I'm fine, little one." He whispered to the dragon, "It's just Eragon is called Shadeslayer for a reason! He killed the Shade Durza and aided Arya in her destruction of the Shade Varaug. I don't think he's going to like me!" Taraug patted Briam's head more to comfort himself than the tiny dragon.

"What else do you know of Eragon?" Nâolin made Taraug jump as he realised he'd listened to the whole conversation, "there are many superstitions that have no basis in truth, centred on Eragon and Saphira."

"What? You mean he didn't kill Durza?" Taraug was shocked that the great Eragon might not be what he expected.

"Oh yes, Eragon does deserve the title Shadeslayer." Nâolin smiled.

"Is Eragon not seven feet tall? I never did believe that one. I bet he isn't half elf either, is he?" Taraug shook his head; he'd heard some weird stories about Eragon before.

"No, Eragon isn't seven foot, but you're right about the half elf thing, Eragon was changed by the magic of the Dragons when in Du Weldenvarden." Nâolin stood, "Hey over here!"

Taraug spun to look the way Nâolin had shouted, but there was only a small young woman near one of the flames, Eragon still hadn't arrived.

The woman couldn't have been taller than 4'5" walked over to Nâolin and smiled toward Taraug, "So you're Taraug?"

She couldn't have been more than a year older than him, Taraug assumed. He nodded in answer to her.

The woman held out her hand to Taraug, "Great! I'm Eragon!"

**A/N I bet you didn't see that coming did ya? Huh? Huh?**

**You can all review and tell me!**

**I had to change a big mistake I made in the prologue, I wrote 'he' in relation to Eragon! It was a really, bad mistake. But you'll never believe how hard it is to write with out using a single pronoun! I really couldn't reveal that Eragon was a girl then, and I couldn't use him, because that just wouldn't work!**

**Phew! It's all over now, no more nasty things hiding in the closet…**

**I did tell you this was a really random dream I had. I warned you. If you don't like that Eragon's a girl and VERY small here then don't read this Fan Fic, it's that simple!**

**If you do like it, or can put up with it, then REVIEW, otherwise I'll just assume that no one likes it and will stop writing it. :(**

**PLEASE REVIEW!! :)**


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